After months of searching for reasons for the vicious cutbacks imposed on the West Australian lobster industry, it seems that the answer has been staring us in the face all along.
The loss to the industry of long time fishing families and the assault on the finances and retirement plans of so many others, is not so much of a conspiracy, as a rationalisation programme where the re-engineering of the industry is a widely accepted principle.
The scientists knew it, the bureaucrats knew it, the state government knew it, the federal government knew it and, the WWF pushed it under the cunning guise of the coveted MSC.
It just so happened that the average fisherman did not pick up on it. This applies not just to a world level, but to a federal, a state and even to a personal level.
Formerly independent fishers must now buy a job in the industry they love. Steady attrition will add more people to the losers list, and there is no doubt that anything less than a bumper season with good prices will leave many people counting their losses. Have you registered your interest in holding the government to task over this? Probably not.
The nature of our lobster and its increased catchability during the whites phase is a great blessing for economic harvesting. To leave the crays there to exploit a higher price when they are harder to catch is simplistic thinking if the bottom line is profit to the fisher.
Biological realities
Altering the biological realities of the species to suit the market is not going to happen. A couple of dollars here and there can be completely subsumed by the normal vaguaries of exchange rates and markets even without chucking in the odd SARS epidemic. We'd best attend to the business we CAN control.
What does one do? Get as many pots as possible, make a grab for the awarded catch and selfishly elbow the others out, or scale back, minimise costs and hunker down for the storm? Time will tell, but another great divide has been created.
There is great potential for patient fishers to lose out with a TACC. Over a normal season catches tend to even out over the whole fishery.
Now an exaggerated "race to fish", the bane of the environmentalists has been created. Will the fishers react as they have in the past, begging for more regulations to make it more equitable (i.e. quota)?
And then will they ask for specified zones as looks like happening in Tasmania. The West Australian Department of Fisheries (DoF) certainly thinks so, and WWF with their MSC scam are demanding it.
At some stage one would hope the remaining fishers will organise and put a stop to the cheap political shots we are taking. The constant moving of the goalposts supported by ad hoc science will be never ending until we find common ground and say, "enough is enough".
Five years ago, Angus Callander, after many years in the industry and almost as many on the board of WAFIC, lamented the fishermen's propensity to ignore reality and their failure to pursue property rights for licences. It just seemed to be a normal thing that one might defend one's position and rights in society.
The councils equivocated, the fishers prevaricated, and nothing happened.
Various fishers [including even, Peter Burton back then] had a shot, ending up with the whitewash that was the parliamentary inquiry into West Australian fisheries of 1989.
We were told we had no rights, but only privileges. What was the reaction of our representatives? Not a peep. A fighting fund of US$137,000 and the determination of a few, couldn't galvanise the fishermen – opposition dissolved.
Property rights were still a possibility at that time.
Now we have guaranteed proportional access, with one pot if the minister so decides. We are buying back our own pots, at a rate that on paper is indefensible, especially in view of his ill informed threat of continued micromanagement. Does he not understand that this concept is ludicrous in a fishery comprised of up to 13 pelagic laval stages spread over a year, the trek of the puerulus, threeyears as a cannibalised juvenile, and a few more until it is reproductively relevant?
The man who doesn't have the time to find out how the industry works will continue to meddle to the tune of a mantra from above.
On a personal level fishers exercise their competitive nature and are prepared to sit back and watch it all go to hell, with the presumption that they will be the last man standing, even if mortally wounded.
The trouble with this is that compared with the rest of society, our living standards will be in free fall, even if we ARE beating our colleagues. This was a point made by Caleb Gardener. Thus divided, we make an easy mark. We are being picked off because we are that easy, but why?
Vested interests
On a world level, money from big oil was doled out for research. Scientists with worthwhile projects were supported by grants. Obviously vested interests decided which proposals were or were not worthwhile. New technology, and projects worth brownie points with the greens, were particularly valued.
Guess what? The cheapest points were gained in fisheries research, because of all the available targets, fishermen were the least organised most easily divided and thus totally defenceless.
The science of population dynamics, competition and predation is almost entirely statistically-based and is easily manipulated by modelling theory to tell whatever story is required. With a generous application of the precautionary principle, the fishermen were soon surrounded by the nodding wiseheads of those with nothing to lose.
All around the world the magical 50 percent reduction figure appeared. It had less to do with maths than it did a throwaway bottom line from conservationists. From the best fisheries to the worst this is apparently the desired minimum.
From the moral high ground, the Australian Government, supporting the biggest coal mining industry in the world obviously covets the green tick. A government that is about to give the nod to one of the biggest uranium mining ventures, and oil and gas that needs a lot of leeway in the north, while mining in potential heritage areas, are both low in green cred.
Chuck in MPAs (Marine Protected Areas) — no skin off anyone's back, but not near oil rigs — and the greens were bound to grab it with both hands. The science was bound to support it as well.
One might have thought that the farmers, particularly the cattlemen might have made good targets. It has been quoted that one kilogram of beef on the table equates to 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere!
The trouble is, the farmers are big, organised and have national representation. So by default, years of government policy have evolved to slowly unpick the fabric of Australia's fisheries.
Unite or Perish
In every case, according to Ausmarine's Neil Baird, distrust and disunity amongst the fishers has played a major part in the process. He has watched it over and over again, like an old movie rerun. This has so frustrated him, he has personally offered his advice to our industry purely in the hope that the last and biggest fishery might be the one to learn the lesson. That is, Unite or Perish.
There is a way forward if we can sideline our differences and promote those vital issues we have in common. We must conscientiously oppose all and any restrictive initiatives unless they have come from industry itself, and unless and until it has been exhaustively examined for positive effect. This would require a complete reorganisation of the management process. It is unbelievable that the no soak rule for pots slipped past the Rock Lobster Industry Advisory Committee (RLIAC), and that it was apparently dreamed up by someone from compliance.
Why did we have to waste US$155,000 last year to prove that fishermen had already developed the superpot with the monzas in the mid eighties? How did Stuart Smith and Mr Fletcher come to approve the use of five extra pots for the participants in the "superpot" fiasco?
Obviously the legal implications were brought to their attention when they hastily withdrew their offer, albeit after many of the pots were in the water.
It begs the question, "What does the tea lady have planned for us?"
Strong, focussed participation from fishers with an eye on ALL the articles in the management accord with the federal government, and committed under a redefined Western Rock Lobster Council (WRLC) constitution, to betterment of the whole of industry is required. If this can be attained, the government men could take a step back. It would be a first for fishermen. We have the personnel for the job, but we must see past personal interest. The catching part of the industry virtually runs itself anyway. I doubt if any crayfish have ever heard of Mr Moore.
Believe it or not we can now come from our own moral high ground and seize the day if we have the will. The biggest fishery in Australia already has the highest possible credentials for eco-sustainability. Yet still the WWF ideologues demand more.
Our record:
The list goes on
On top of this, every day when WE venture out, we return with the equivalent of a big bag of vital foreign exchange money to pump directly into our economy – it's a wonder we're not national bloody heroes!!
Of course, the industry has assimilated so many changes in such a short time that we have not had time to equilibrate. We have had no time to evaluate their net effect on either the lobster population or the industry. A wise move would be to back off and let this happen.
The only way we could have less of an effect on the environment is if we weren't there at all. Perhaps that shouldn't have been mentioned, but I'm sure the greenest of our detractors have that on their mind.
Peter Prideaux, one of the last fishermen left standing following government attacks.
